


The boy with a thorn in his side.

by ChiaraWaters



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drama, F/M, Love Triangle, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiaraWaters/pseuds/ChiaraWaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oxford University- Sherlock Holmes is in his first Masters program, and John Watson is studying medicine. A meeting in a lab at midnight, leads to an unlikely relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The boy with a thorn in his side.

John woke, rolling so he was on his side and his arm instinctively went to the other side of the bed. It was empty. So, apparently, they were still fighting. He sighed, closing his eyes. Today was going to be one of those incredibly long days. He heard footsteps enter the room, the sound causing him to open his eyes and turn his head towards the doorway. Sure enough, there was his live in girlfriend. He swallowed a little as he watched her slide a earring into her ear,  
“So, are you getting up?” She asked looking annoyed.  
He nodded “Yes, yup.” He answered as he pushed the covers off himself and walked over to her, leaning in, wanting to kiss her, but she dodged out of the way and he ended up kissing the air. He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. “Okay.”  
He walked to the toilet, closing the door, and going about his morning routine - piss, shower, possibly a shave, and getting dressed.  


She looked at him, annoyed from across the kitchen table. “So are you just not going to say anything?” She asked him.  
 He looked up from his bowl of oatmeal. “I didn’t know there was anything to say. I thought we had said it all last night.”  
She sighed, getting up and pushing her chair back angrily. He nodded, to himself. Perfect, just fucking perfect.  
 “So are we just going to continue this all day then?” He asked, angry now, though more annoyed with her for continuing a fight that he thought they had ended the night prior.  
 “Fuck you, John!” He heard her retort, and the slam of the front door.  
John nodded again to himself, walking to the kitchen sink and putting his bowl. He rubbed his hand on his cheek. Well, at least he had gotten one thing right. He had remembered to shave. 

John sat in the rather uncomfortable stool in front of the counter, in Oxford’s medical lab. He still couldn’t believe that he had gotten into school here, which was part of the reason that he worked so hard. He heard the lab door open, and he looked up. It was almost midnight, yes, he was avoiding going back to the flat, but he hadn’t been expecting anyone to be in the building at this hour.  
The man who walked in made John sit up straighter. Was he getting inspected? At this hour? The man looked about his age, maybe a bit younger, and he was dressed like he was a Professor here. He was dressed in black dress trousers, a white dress shirt and a tweed jacket. John watched the man as he took off his jacket and lung it over one of the stools and began to take things off out of his jacket pockets and place them carefully on the counter in front of him. It was as if John didn’t exist, sure the man had his back to him, but John wasn’t invisible and this lab, though rather large they were still close to each other. As the man walked to the cupboard and pulled out a microscope, John couldn’t handle it anymore.  
“Excuse me, but can I help you?” John asked.  
The man didn’t look up, sitting down on the stool, but answering John as if he had known he was there the entire time.  
“Nope.” The mans deeper voice answered.  
John frowned, pursing his lips a little, and leaving his station and walking so that he was on the opposite side of the counter the man was at.  
“Sorry, but are you a Professor here?” He watched as the man began to carefully picked up a human tooth from one of the containers from his jacket pocket, placing it under the microscope and looking at it.  
“No, do I look like one?” The man asked in an almost know-it-all voice.  
John chuckled a little, nodding. “Well, yes. You’re wearing _tweed. _”__  
The man looked up from the microscope and straight at John’s face. John looked back at him, having the feeling like he was being checked out but he didn’t understand how that could be since the man was just staring at his face.  
“I”m not a Professor,” the man said with a chuckle. “I’m completing my masters.”  
John nodded, “In tooth decay?” He asked with a small chuckle, only guessing that was what the man was looking for in the tooth.  
The man’s eyes went wide a little, and he shook his head, looking back in the eyepieces.  
“Then what are you doing here? At midnight.”  
“Work.” The man responded.  
John chuckled a little, well, that was obvious. He was about to ask if he was authorized into this lab, when he was interrupted by the man’s deep voice.  
“Ignoring the fight by working late, won’t make the situation any better. Or at least that’s what I’ve been led to understand about women.”  
John’s face fell a little, his eyebrows going up. “Wait... how... how do you know that?”  
The man looked up quickly to scribble something in a moleskin notebook. “You forgot to shave half your face.” The man answered.  
John ran a hand over his cheeks, sighing, he was right. “So, that doesn’t mean I’m having a fight with my girlfriend.”  
The man sighed, and looked at John. “Can we not do that. I am quite busy, and so are you, by the looks of things you don’t plan to go home at all tonight.”  
John opened his mouth and shut it again. Unsure of what to say or do. “Do what?” He asked.  
“Where I explain how I know about your fight with your girlfriend, why you weren’t planning on going home, and why, by the looks of things, that you’re going to break up with her.”  
John stood dumbfounded, nodding a little. “Okay...” He paused for a moment. “ _Who_ are you?”  
The man looked up at John again “Sherlock Holmes, and if you don’t mind, I need to find out how the poison got into this mans tooth.”  



End file.
